On the morning of 8 May 1902, the Caribbean city of Saint-Pierre was alive with routine, unaware it had less than a minute left to exist. When Mount Pelée erupted at 07:52 a.m., a superheated pyroclastic surge raced down the volcano's flank and erased an entire city almost instantly, killing around 28,000 people. There was no lava river, no slow warning, and almost no chance of escape. In this episode of Compact Disasters, we reconstruct the final weeks before the eruption, the fatal decisions that kept people in harm's way, the science behind the blast, and how Mount Pelée permanently changed the way the world understands volcanic danger.

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In 2010, a volcanic eruption beneath an Icelandic glacier did something no government or crisis had ever achieved. It shut down European air travel. In this Compact Disasters episode, we explore how Eyjafjallajökull grounded millions, disrupted global supply chains, and revealed just how fragile modern systems really are.

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#eyjafjallajokull #icelandvolcano #airtravel #volcanicash #compactdisasters #naturalhazards #geographyfacts #truehistory #modernhistory

How does a warship sink within minutes of launch? In this Compact Disasters episode, we explore the sinking of the Vasa, Sweden's most ambitious naval project, and how politics, pressure, and poor engineering sent it to the bottom of Stockholm harbour in 1628.

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#vasashipwreck #swedishhistory #maritimedisaster #engineeringfailure #compactdisasters #truehistory #navalhistory #europeanhistory #historypodcast.

Discover how a powerful earthquake triggered one of the most destructive avalanches in history, wiping entire towns from the map beneath Mount Huascarán in Peru. Listen now to this devastating story and the lessons it forced the world to learn.

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#huascaran #peruhistory #andes #glacialhazards #cordillerablanca #compactdisasters #earthquakefacts #historypodcast #naturalhazards #geographyclass #truehistory

Discover how a powerful earthquake triggered one of the most destructive avalanches in history, wiping entire towns from the map beneath Mount Huascarán in Peru. Listen now to this devastating story and the lessons it forced the world to learn.

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#huascaran #peruhistory #andes #glacialhazards #cordillerablanca #compactdisasters #earthquakefacts #historypodcast #naturalhazards #geographyclass #truehistory

Listen now to our Compact Disasters episode about the Tangiwai rail disaster, where nature struck without warning and a Christmas homecoming turned into a national tragedy.

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#tangiwai #newzealandhistory #ruapehu #raildisaster #compactdisasters #volcanichazards #lahar #nz #historypodcast #truehistory #geographyfacts

On 26 December 2004, a powerful undersea earthquake off the coast of Sumatra triggered a devastating tsunami that swept across the Indian Ocean. In this episode, we revisit one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history — the Boxing Day Tsunami — to understand how a single seismic event killed over 230,000 people, displaced millions, and reshaped global disaster awareness forever.

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On a sunny morning in June 1904, a leisurely church outing turned to unspeakable tragedy when the General Slocum steamboat caught fire in New York's East River. In just minutes, over a thousand lives—mostly women and children—were lost in one of America's deadliest maritime disasters. In this episode, we dive into what went wrong, how the city responded, and the haunting legacy left behind.

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#generalslocum #steamboatdisaster #historicaltragedy #maritimedisaster #nychistory #1900samerica #eastiverfire #5minutedisasters #urbanhistory #fireatsea